Starred review from November 1, 2005
Laura Grace Brown, nicknamed -Copper - owing to her hair color, loves her Kentucky mountain home more than life (her father, Will, grew up there). So when her aunt (and stepmother) Grace attempts to send her to boarding school for some city refinement, she resists. Grace, who married Will after her sister Julie's death, longs to return to the life she left behind. But she has fallen in love with her husband, even though she knows she will never replace her sister in Will's heart. Set in the 1880s, this is a compelling, layered story of love, misunderstandings, and the difficult choices we are all forced to make in life. Surprisingly, the relationship between the secondary characters, Will and Grace Brown, is as satisfying as Copper's own story. Watson loses some steam in the novel's latter part, but she hints that there may be more -Troublesome Creek - stories in the future. Winner of the 2004 Jerry B. Jenkins Christian Writers Guild -Operation First Novel - contest, this is recommended for historical fiction collections. Watson lives in Kentucky.
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